


Tough Love

by weapon13WhiteFang



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Other, tough love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-11
Updated: 2014-10-11
Packaged: 2018-02-20 17:57:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2437796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weapon13WhiteFang/pseuds/weapon13WhiteFang
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yondu is a firm believer in a little tough love goes a long way.</p><p>Nothing crazy. Just me experimenting with writing GotG and being a fan of Papa!Yondu with little Peter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tough Love

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by artwork I found on Tumblr.

Two year. Two full year…. It had been exactly two full years since he’d seen Earth. He’d been abducted. Abducted by a bunch of jerks calling themselves Ravangers. They’d tried to eat him. Eat him! Like he was some stupid animal to be munched on! Seriously not cool.

Peter – thirteen – curled his knees to his chest and stared out the small window of the loading bay. In a little corner of the loading bay was his “room”; a large crate fastened into a bed and a few measly items he’d had stashed in his back-pack that he was “allowed” to keep. His headphones were secured tight to his skull. He’d been careful to not use them to much lately. He only had one more pair of batteries left. It wasn’t like batteries – the Terra kind at least – were easy to find in space.

Looking out the window, Peter could see what he always saw; stars and a few meager planets in the distance. Sometimes they’d pass so close to a planet, Peter wondered how they never crashed into it. Other times they were so far away that they just looked like colored specks on the glass panel.

“Quill!”

Peter frowned and turned up the volume. He didn’t look as a scraggly figure made their way to the back of the loading dock. Didn’t pay the smell – something he’d gotten use to but still noticed – of the second-in-command any mind as he stopped before him.

Kraglin Obfonteri was a lanky man-alien with spiked up brown hair, growing matching colored facial scruff, and an often confounded or annoyed expression. He wasn’t much older than Peter – okay so about four years – but he walked around like an adult and even bossed Peter around like one. It got on Peter’s nerves but he learned long ago that Kraglin may look scrawny, but he was tough and wasn’t afraid to knock Peter around. Being raised by Ravangers would do that to a guy he supposed.

“Quill, dammit,” Kraglin huffed, dragging the headphones roughly off his head. Instantly Peter snatched them out of Kraglin’s grip and tensed for the defense. He may not be able to win against Kraglin or the others, but he wasn’t letting anyone touch his headphones and walkman again.

“Whaddya want, Kraglin,” he snapped, turning off his walkman and shoving it away in his backpack. It wasn’t much of a hiding place but it made him feel better to at least have it out of the others sight and safely tucked away from their dirty hands.

“Yondu wants ya. Now,” he ordered, motioning him to follow.

Great. Yondu hadn’t spoken to Peter since they left that meteor colony a week ago. Peter had gotten into a little bit of trouble… Okay a lot of trouble. He’d kind of caused a bar fight between the Ravangers and some other space pirates who didn’t have much love for Ravangers. He’d called one of them a Magilla Gorilla reject. Course the dumbass hadn’t known what he was being called, but knew he was being insulted, so he’d slugged Peter and thrown him across the bar, breaking glass and crashing him into Yondu and Kraglin.

All Hell had broke loose then. Not because he’d been hurt and thrown around. Oh no. But because the throw had caused Yondu to spill and loose his drink he’d just bought. And that had pissed the Ravanger Captain off something fierce before he was slugging a few down – fist for once instead of his stupid, creepy arrow – and then chewing Peter out.

Peter followed Kraglin quietly. Looking at the back of the second-in-commands head, Peter’s eyes traveled down to a bandages around Kraglin’s arm. He’d gotten glass in his arm from the bar fight and had to be patched up. Peter unconsciously reached up and touched the bandages on his arm and felt just the slightest pang of guilt. He hadn’t tried to drag a fight. The assholes had just been jerks!

A few of the crew mates glared at Peter or grumbled under their breath, but none approached as Kraglin lead him on. Nobody wanted to fight Yondu if they so much as took a snap at him. Hell Peter would never forget the way his voice had filled the room as Peter – only eleven and newly abducted – had coward against a wall behind Yondu as the captain barked at his crew.

_“Get the hell back! Ya aint eaten him! This welps our work. Ya bite him, we don’t get paid. We don’t get paid, I get mad. And I may look like a sweetheart, but if one of ya makes me mad you’ll be sippin’ outta a hole in yer throat!”_

Peter knew he’d only done it because he was Yondu’s job, but back then it had been really impressive. Peter… Wasn’t use to strong men in his life. His dad hadn’t been around – living in the stars apparently – and his grandpa had been a "down to earth and let it slide" kind of guy. He hadn’t been a fighter. Not like Yondu…. Peter wondered if his real dad was like that.

“Quill, boy, pay attention!”

Peter snapped to and he blinked, slowly realizing he was standing in Yondu’s room. Peter had only been here once or twice, but he knew the room. It was the bigger room on the ship, smelled like Yondu the most – which was actually a better smell compared to his crew mates – and had all his weird figures all over the place. Peter had a Troll Doll in his backpack… Wonder if Yondu would like that…

Thinking of Yondu, Peter found himself starring at the Centuarian’s shirtless back. His blue skin was damp, indicating he’d taken a shower and he was wiping at his face and using a knife to give himself a sort of trim. Normally Yondu seemed to like leaving his facial hair to grow where it pleased. But other times he would trim up mostly because – and Peter had learned this from the crew – the warrior in him knew that the less hair you had to grab, the easier it was for you to avoid being grabbed by said hair and killed.

Peter found his eyes staring at the array of scars down the Captain’s back and was transfixed. There were so many. Some long, some short. Some thick, some thin. One in particular really stuck out. It was a large, almost X shaped gash just below his neckline on his spine. It looked like something had been driven into his skin then ripped up. The scar was old, but still looked very painful.

If he hadn’t been staring at the scars, he’d have noticed that Yondu was watching him from his mirror. He straightened before wiping down his face and turning to face him, snapping Peter to. He met the Centuarians gaze before glaring as Yondu sneered at him. He hated when he did that. It was like he was looking at Peter like he was dirt.

“Quill you is some kinda stupid, ya know that?” he spoke up, and Peter scowled at him, shoving his hands into his Ravanger jacket that he’d earned last year for helping complete his first mission with Kraglin. His fist clinched in the pockets, but he kept silent.

“I mean what the hell was goin' through that Terra mind’a yours? Shit, kid, didn’ yer old man teach ya to pick yer fights?” he continued with obvious annoyance, his temper raising.

Peter looked up and met his angry red eyes. “My dad wasn’t around. I told you that… So, no,” he finished, voice dripping with sarcasm and anger that he knew was gonna get his ear socked. Yondu didn't have much patience or liking of any lip Peter gave him. But right now he didn't much care.

Yondu – for once – didn’t seem to mind his lip, for he pinched the bridge of his nose and cursed in his native tongue before walking over and grabbing a clean shirt off his bed. He pulled it on before stepping towards Peter, grabbing him by his arm and dragging him out the room, which shut automatically. Kraglin followed without question, having been standing quietly in the corner.

Peter struggled to keep up with Yondu’s larger, longer strides as he was being herded through the ship. A few of the crew members glanced up from their work to either gawk like idiots or snicker at Peter’s predicament until Yondu sent them a glare and they were back to work as Kraglin reinforced with a snapping order of his own.

Peter paid them no mind as he panted slightly, almost slamming into Yondu’s back as they eventually stopped in The Arena…. Okay so it wasn’t a real arena. It was more like a big open area where – when crew members had issues with each other – Yondu would throw them into the center and have them beat the living shit out of each other to get it out of their systems. He’d step in to keep someone from dying, but otherwise Yondu was big on a sort of “solve it yourself unless it affects the crew as a whole, then come to me” way of running things and so far it seemed to work.

Yondu snapped his fingers at Kraglin, who nodded and stepped out the Arena and out the door for just a second or two before returning. And Peter’s stomach dropped and anger instantly flickered through him as his backpack was thrown to Yondu.

“Hey!” Peter exclaimed, crouching and his body instantly poised to charge.

Yondu opened his bag – gave Peter a dismissive glance – before yanking out his walkman and throwing the bag back to Kraglin. Peter’s eyes were fixed on the walkman as Yondu dangled it before him and out towards Peter.

“Give it back!” Peter yelled, anger pushing him forward.

He ran at Yondu and made to snatch his walkman away, but before his fingers could touch, the Centuarian sidestepped him easily and moved almost like a crazy, dangerous dancer out of reach and ended up behind Peter, smirking darkly and waving the headphones.

“Come on, Quill. Ya must not want these back so bad,” he taunted and stretched the headphones. Peter’s blood spiked and he charged again, swinging. Over and over he attacked, lunging and going for Yondu’s chest or arm or whatever he could get close to.

But each time The Ravanger Captain easily dodged his attempts and Peter was eventually out of breath, gasping and panting and falling to the ground on his knees, his tears of anger mixing with his sweat. He heard Yondu scoff and snicker at him and could tell that Kraglin was suppressing a laugh as well. More anger boiled up in him and he attempted to get to his feet to charge the jerk again, but stumbled back as the headphones and walkman was tossed at him. He caught it and held it against his chest protectively.

“You’re too damn slow, kid. Next time I keep it.”

Peter glared through his sweat-soaked bangs and held his walkman close and panted as Yondu stepped around him. Kraglin followed after as he exited The Arena, and Peter was left alone, shaking with anger and frustration, vowing to hide his prized possession better this time.

Of course what Peter wouldn't know was that this would go on for the next eight years. And by the ninth time, Yondu did almost keep it. But each time he gave it back… But it didn't damper any anger in Peter. It fueled him. Each time Yondu would laugh and dangle the walkman at him like some owner teasing their cat with a mouse on a string.

But each time, Peter got smarter. He was starting to understand how Yondu moved, feel out the fights. And he was getting so close each time. And so a month after his twenty-first birthday, Peter – much to his satisfaction – landed a hard right hook on Yondu’s face and tackled him down, shoving the older male and yanking his walkman away. The look on Kraglin’s face had been priceless and Yondu cussed up something fierce at him.

It’s been eighteen years since then, but now – as him and the Guardians sailed through the stars for who knows where – Peter can’t help but stare down at his old walkman and curse under his breath. Because damn. The old, Centuarian bastard knew what he’d been doing with him since day one…. Bastard.


End file.
